Forum:Regarding the direction of the wiki

Right, to be frank, as many of you know, This wiki has been "forked" to illogicopedia.org. The domain has been held by the the originators of the site (offically owned by me, but i give Nerd42 and Hindleyite as much say in its use). Since then, the .com has also been registered to prevent cyber-squatting.

In that regard, it now means this site needs to take a new direction to differentiate itself from the original community.

We are open to suggestions of how to do this, many ideas include:

Re-branding the site to another unrelated name.

leave the site as is, scraping off the cream under GNU - CC compatibility. Basically, New ?pedia can fork from old ?pedia, but not visa versa.

Throw the ashes on the fire and give up, letting the site fall into despair and disrepair.

Demand having the site closed and just use the newer site.

At my standpoint, I find it too hard to follow both sites, i get them muddled up, so would much rather closure or re-branding than leaving it as it is.

All I can say is, that I don't want wikia to harm the current Siamese community thing we currently have going on, just for their bested interests rather than the community's. --Silent Penguin 16:35, 24 Novelniver 2008 (UTC)

I was thinking that an open discussion, less on the lines of bitching about kyles actions, which are those of a puppet, he just acts for the good of wikia, and not his own, so, i dont think he deserves the rap, after all, he may well be a good person to know, its too easy to judge him. --Silent Penguin 17:18, 24 Novelniver 2008 (UTC)

Agreed, Seppy. Kyle is just a pawn in W*kia's game where it is their chessboard and they refuse to accept a checkmate. My personal gripes are with W*kia and the way they have, in many cases, had to cave in to the advertisers and financial people to the disgust of many of those who actually create the site. However, I'm gonna shut up about personal opinion because I've ranted about that enough in the Illogiblog and other places.

As for the fate of this wiki, I really would like this place closed down because I object to my content being held on the server of anyone who rates financial gain so far ahead of its users (which, IMO, has happened with Wikia and Illogicopedia).

Can't see that happening though, as I don't feel W*kia respect my opinion at all. At the very least if W*kia want to keep this wiki open, the users that created the content should be able to request deletion of any article they wrote here. I did entertain the idea of suggesting this site be made a mirror to the real Illogicopedia but W*kia's conduct has totally changed my mind.

However, I will continue to fight for what the (Illogicopedian) community think is right for the old wiki and respect their wishes even if W*kia don't. If this means simply changing the name and rebranding the whole thing 'Sandalpedia' or something then so be it: I will go ahead with whatever the real community (as in, those that aren't passing vandals or trolls that found the wiki in the last two weeks) thinks and accept it. -- HindleyakConverse • ?blog • Click here! 17:55, 24 Novelniver 2008 (UTC)

Contents

Replace the Main Page with a link to the new wiki and give anybody who tries to edit the Wikia ?pedia (other than edits relating to the move, obviously) a polite message requesting they sign up at the new ?pedia. If they don't, block them. If Wikia tries to take this wiki away, begin the shitstorm. Mass vandalism, trolling, basically make this wiki uneditable. Boom. --Aaaaannooooo!!! 19:17, 24 Novelniver 2008 (UTC)

We need to think constructively, if such actions were chosen by the community, a hard redirect would be a much more appropriate option, with less overhead for servers, than a nudge and poke fest.

An idea if we rebrand this site, might well be to hard redirect the illogicopedia.wikia.com domain to the newer wiki to help whittle down any possible confusion between the two, so people dont see a "this wiki does not exist" page, or get redirected to a similar wiki of a different name, which would doubtlessly be more confusing.--Silent Penguin 12:37, 25 Novelniver 2008 (UTC)

Sounds good lads, a redirect to the new site at the very least would be good. --TReich(My Bad) 16:32, 25 Novelniver 2008 (UTC)

Rebranding this site is the better option as everyone gets something; wikia get a site to rack up advertising revenue and the Illogicopedia community get closure on the old site and less confusion for newbies. In addition, rebranding this site may give birth new an altogether new community who do not have to feel they are in the shadow of the old Illogicopedia elite. 212.85.1.1 16:33, 25 Novelniver 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, now theres a point, you may have made inadvertently, I constantly feel like we are in the shadow of uncyc, even though we are different, even they agree so, now how about a site trying to be the same thing as something it used to be? rebranding may never give the site a new lease of life :S --Silent Penguin 17:01, 25 Novelniver 2008 (UTC)

As far as I know, if this wiki were re-used for something else (such as to become Wikipedia parody Wackipedia) then illogicopedia.wikia.com would redirect to wackipedia.wikia.com - for instance.

I see no way that this wiki can remain under the Illogicopedia name without confusion with Illogicopedia.org and legally the first use of the Illogicopedia name was indeed on a non-Wikia version of the project. Waiting to see if the owners of the original Illogicopedia would be strongly-enough opposed to the confusingly-similar names to either start contacting Wikia advertisers about the matter or to start raising the issues on other non-Wikia forums (fora?) all across the Internet would be ill-advised as the result could only reflect badly on Wikia.

Illogicopedia.org has no advertisers to lose, Wikia does... and there are already so many thorny questions about Wikia's re-use of content from CC-BY-NC wikis (such as various language Uncyclopedias, which mostly are not GFDL) that adding one more is not going to help matters. If there are two wikis on two divergent paths, and this is what Wikia appears to intend to create, they should have two different names and identities.

Do also keep in mind that content on this wiki is edited and controlled by Wikia staff (hi Kyle!) so legally Wikia is responsible for its content under various legal doctrines such as that of vicarious liability (where an employer is responsible for what their worker bees are doing on-duty or in the line of these duties). If this wiki infringes on the trade name or identity of a previous Illogicopedia-branded project, or it violates copyright held by the original author of some non-GFDL work (such as by re-using CC-BY-NC content commercially) or GFDL work (by not providing attribution to the author), the liability is absolute.

Wikia is not a common carrier; that tiny bit of legal safe-haven applies to telephone and cable operators, possibly including ISP's, if their role is solely to pass through content originated by clients with no further editing. And no, "from {SITENAME} a Wikia wiki" is not the correct attribution; it's spammed across every page, every message, every template of anything special:exported (to the point where it was getting site robots banned from Uncyclopedia.de once this spam was inadvertently being reimported to the wiki on every 'bot edit) but it's wrong. Wikia is not the author. The free license requires credit to the author, Uncyclopedia's license (which applies to anything brought here from various wikis there) forbids unauthorised commercial use and none of the licenses confer use of identifying marks such as trade or brand names.

I'd say that, now that Wikia paid staff have taken editorial control here, they have a monstrous task ahead in terms of cleaning up content which is improperly attributed, from non-commercially licensed sources or which in some way infringes the prior use of the Illogicopedia name on another wiki. If the cleanup is not done, Wikia is legally liable; it is not a common carrier in the sense of a Bell or a British Telecom utility company (those simply pass through calls with no editorial control. KyleH is exerting editorial control now and as his employer in this endeavour, Wikia is solely liable for the content of the finished product). --carlb 16:53, 25 Novelniver 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure there is much more I can say to that. As a good phrase put it "sh*t is about to hit the fan". Probably quite apt, from that angle, wikia can't keep tanking on expecting there to be no repercussions at some point in the future. --Silent Penguin 17:11, 25 Novelniver 2008 (UTC)

In any case, the real unknown here is not the Illogicopedia community but stakeholders such as Amazon, Inc. They're one of the largest (if not the largest) of those who sank money into Wikia back in 2006, when it was still getting new venture capital instead of operating in freefall. To Wikia, the millions of Amazon bucks are not exactly chump change, despite Wikia being so small as to be all but ignorable on Amazon's balance sheets. Amazon is primarily a bookstore. Whatever position they take on copyright, authorship or any other related issues will likely be dictated by their role as a bookseller. Their small (to them) stake in Wikia might not cross their minds often as they focus on their primary business. As such, their position on copyright of any of this stuff is hugely an unknown. For the most part, they haven't played a huge role in anything happening over here, but it would be interesting to know where they stand? --carlb 17:49, 25 Novelniver 2008 (UTC)

Yes, to be frank, it would be very intriguing to understand how Amazon views such action. Creates some interesting situations depending on how they stand.--Silent Penguin 18:24, 25 Novelniver 2008 (UTC)

Excuse me for popping in... I just had to mention how impressed I am to see the level of restraint being demonstrated by the ?pedia community over this. Surely Wikia will realise that the tiny amount of money this site generates is just not worth the negative publicity which will be generated should it continue in this attempt to keep the site open. MrN9000 22:33, 25 Novelniver 2008 (UTC)

Some good points, Carl. The legal stuff I shall take your word for, as my knowledge of law is minimal.

Thinking about this, the majority of users of Wikia are happy with its service (probably) and a few little comments in forums elsewhere on the Internet are unlikely to hurt them. Should the story catch on, though, (say, er, in The Guardian or something) it could potentially blow up into something harmful. Not that I wish ill upon Wikia: their aims are noble and for all my annoyances and disagreements I do not wish to hurt them. I'm just saying that I think you are both right: this stuff could potentially spread like wildfire the longer it drags on (which I hope it doesn't).

Could be... Wikia is pretty small in the scheme of things and, while "the amount of the investment was not disclosed"[1] back in 2006[2], odds are that it's closer to $10 million (or less) --- peanuts for a company large enough that $199 million in quarterly earnings[3] in the same timeframe (late 2006) would be the sort of pittance to disappoint its investors who were hoping for more. For Wikia to even be noticed by media would be indicative more of it riding on Wikipedia's coat-tails for publicity - something that hasn't endeared the company to the Wikipedian rank-and-file at times - than of it having any real notability in its own right. After all, Wikia is shrinking rather rapidly at the moment.[4][5][6] While the Amazon.com name and brand are valuable, the Wikia name (minus whatever illusory goodwill can be misappropriated from other projects such as Wikipedia) largely is not so. --carlb 23:26, 25 Novelniver 2008 (UTC)

It's obvious why all this has happened. We've left a website which gains money from the amount of wikis it hosts in the middle of a financial downturn. Websites are going bust and dropping dead all over the net, the cost of hosting has gone up pushing freewebs to scrap the 'free' in their name (suggesting that they will start to charge money). Wikia think they are in charge of the wiki so they are taking the obvious decision of keeping our wiki. Now, it's time for me to jump shit ship and bugger off somewhere else, this has turned into a bitch-battle.--RyanBen! ~ UTC ~ 13:14, 26 Novelniver 2008 (UTC)

Now look what you made Ben do, W*kia! These are the kind of implications your actions are having on our community! -- HindleyakConverse • ?blog • Click here! 18:14, 26 Novelniver 2008 (UTC)

We (meaning SilentPenguin & friends) own illogicopedia.org and we made up the name of the site long before we came to Wikia. We used it back when Wikia refused the project because it was seen as too similar to uncyclopedia and we moved to EditThis. Therefore it makes no sense at this late date for Wikia to suddenly decide that hanging on to the name "illogicopedia" matters. I think this Wikia site should rename itself to something else to avoid confusion. --Nerd42eMailTalkUnMetaWPediah2g2 15:00, 26 Novelniver 2008 (UTC)

My ban has expired now, and I would like to say that I agree with Nerd42 that we should not have two Illogicopedias. The departing members of the community have written everything on this site that is worth viewing twice. If there will continue to be a site on Wikia, I would like this content to be removed. I suggest either starting from scratch with a new name or creating a hard redirect. In forking/pretending to fork this wiki, Wikia is using our content (that is, the Illogicopedia community's content) for its monetary gain. SomeWHAT!?(number two) (talk) (contribs) (editcount) 16:26, 26 Novelniver 2008 (UTC)

what if we uhm... what the hell happened to this site? why so much blue? Is it the new skin no one likes? So anyways, what if we simply used this original site as a forbidden island where we send vandals. And we can quarantine them and they can vandalize all they want. If that happens, I just may join them. the new server is as slow as MOLASSES! It takes like 3 minutes minimum to load a page. And half of that is just my computer, but the rest of the internet loads fine. That is also why I have been inactive. NO PATIENCE. And additionally, I am banned from IRC. Wellll.... I kinda banned myself. Since when I was scanning for viruses after the computer was freaking out, the virus that killed my computer was called "IRC BACKDOOR FLOOD" And that is my life story.--|Fonchezzz|Quacking| 15:24, 28 Novelniver 2008 (UTC)

New site is slow for me too, can take up to 40 seconds to load a page sometimes. Other times it's lightening fast, faster even than Wikia. 82.198.250.2 16:22, 28 Novelniver 2008 (UTC)

It's been a little while since we have talked, but it seemed like the conversations here were moving in a productive direction, so I wanted to step back see those discussions progress before jumping in and participating myself.

You want to leave Wikia, as is your right. But you also want us to delete part of the site and direct users elsewhere. Please consider this from our point of view. While you created the content (a huge achievement!), the arrangement for hosting was that we provide the resources, staff support and technical backup. In return, the content is licensed in a way that allows us (and anyone else) continuous free use of it.

We fully appreciate that you would like us to close this wiki, but we believe there is a possibility that it can develop a new community over time and we want to give it that chance. Of course, we would definitely prefer that you stay... but we also understand that's unlikely. So now we need to switch our attention to the future of this wiki.

All that said, I understand your anger, and want to do something to help, so we have come up with a partial compromise: we would like to make the wiki read-only until someone chooses to step up and adopt the wiki. We will leave the homepage as it is, and change the site notice to say "Because much of the community has left this wiki, editing has been disabled. If you are interested in caring for and actively maintaining this wiki, please email community@wikia.com. For more information, please read this page."

If a someone adopts the wiki in good faith, then they will become responsible for the future direction of the wiki. If that does not happen, then this wiki will remain read-only. Do you have any thoughts? I understand that it may not be everything that you are hoping for, but I believe that such a compromise is a good alternative to continuing down our current path.

KyleH, you are absolutely right that the content's GPL'd and the ignorant Illogicopedians here have no grounds to demand that Wikia deletes the content / doesn't continue to host a copy of it. However, I think we do need to come to some arrangement about which site is going to keep the name. Illogicopedia.org should get to keep the site name. You guys, since the community has decided to go someplace else, ought to call yourselves "Nonsensopedia" or somesuch, as any new community that gets started here may decide. --Nerd42eMailTalkUnMetaWPediah2g2 14:57, 11 Ditzimber 2008 (UTC)

I'm well aware of all this GFDL stuff but it's not really about law, it's about respect. At least that's what I've been blabbing on about for the past three weeks - if you look, I've never really brought licenses into the whole thing. It's an unwritten rule in the Illogicopedia that if an author wants their article deleted, then it would be just mean to deny fulfilling their request. Sure, we released all rights to the content at Wikia and we're screwed in that sense but it would just plain stink that Wikia would stoop so low as to cite legal/licensing issues in this matter. If we delete the stuff on author request, then Wikia should just let it be.

I kinda like this idea. What about a name change too? Is that too much to ask? Just something like "Weirdopedia" with the same meaning but not the same word. That way we wouldn't have to worry about competing with whatever community decides to take over (if a new community decides to take over). Also, I'd like the articles of mine that I requested the deletion of to remain deleted, and I'm sure the rest of the community would agree. What do you guys think? --THE 02:25, 10 Ditzimber 2008 (UTC)

I definitely like this idea. I also agree with THE, the name should be changed. --TRAVIS! Ryan!こんにちは 05:20, 10 Ditzimber 2008 (UTC)

Just to answer the two questions posed here: 1) We would rename the wiki that remains here. illogicopedia.wikia.com would redirect to the new url, but it would be clear that the wiki is different, but 2) the deleted articles will, at some point, be restored. (Both of these are probably true regardless of whether or not we set the wiki to read-only.) --KyleH(talk) 22:19, 10 Ditzimber 2008 (UTC)

Aha, excellent - some kind of compromise. Personally, after some consideration, I would be happy for this to go ahead as long as the site's name is changed before it's locked down - it's better than the way things are going at the moment and might curb the bickering a bit. Not sure if all the guys who've had their contribs deleted will be happy but it seems like a fair proposition to me.

PS. I changed the site skin back to Monobook for now because one or two people have indirectly objected to the Monaco skin. -- HindleyakConverse • ?blog • Click here! 23:02, 10 Ditzimber 2008 (UTC)

Reject. Not the best future of the wiki at all. Just think about it. All you've done on this wiki, all the work you have done, maitenance, and all the events which have ever happened - Given to somebody to make their own. A waste. This is typical wikia. Why are we doing this? User:TheBladester

Well, it's not exactly what we wanted but at least it's better than arguing to a lamppost all the time :p. As a stopgap solution, and maybe even a mid-term compromise, it's pretty much the best option for both parties. -- HindleyakConverse • ?blog • Click here! 23:02, 10 Ditzimber 2008 (UTC)

For what it's worth, that's pretty much what you agreed to when you placed your work under the GFDL. Fair's fair. Your only real choice was to deprive Wikia of your ongoing services, and you took it. --GreenReaper(talk) 01:41, 12 Ditzimber 2008 (UTC)

That's some right biased shit there from someone who's only made 4 edits to the site. Who sent you? MMF!→talk←/→admin(:D) 12:34, 12 Ditzimber 2008 (UTC)

Would some kind of prominent link to the new site be displayed once the wiki was made read-only? MrN9000 23:50, 10 Ditzimber 2008 (UTC)

Probably not. Just a notice saying that it's been abandoned. A link to the new site is probably too much to ask, remember Wikia is one of those companies. Unfortunately. But I really would like my deleted articles to remain deleted--I only requested 5 or 6 of my over 100 articles. If they must be restored for this compromise to go through, then go ahead and restore them. But I'd prefer it if those few articles I selected to delete remained deleted. Pretty please. --THE 00:40, 11 Ditzimber 2008 (UTC)

The link in Template:News would remain, and I posted my proposed phrasing for the site notice in my previous message. The site notice will link here, so anyone interested can read the discussion, and should have no trouble finding the other wiki. --KyleH(talk) 00:46, 11 Ditzimber 2008 (UTC)

Blech. Why did we leave the place in the first place? BUT I HAVE AN IDEA. I want to take over the old site! It can be official duck HQ. Everyone else can go away while I go mad all alone. Abandoned. You know, I am claustrophobic, so the less people the better!--|Fonchezzz|Quacking| 02:02, 11 Ditzimber 2008 (UTC)

From a personal view I think we could go one step further than this. I was thinking if we are going to retain quite a lot of articles then it should changed into a wiki based entirely on Surrealism (and of course, changing the name). It would be a site dedicated both to the historical side of the artistic movement as well as users' own surreal writings and stories. That way it would be easily differentiated from Illogicopedia but at the same time the two could actually work together. Basically this site takes more or less a clean slate history-wise but retains some of the articles : so restarting featured articles, images and users, redoing the site look etc. Of course, that's only a hope. Guys at wikia, you've got to realise that this site is being left a skeleton of itself, and you can't just attach flesh to bones and assume that it's somehow going to regain any life. In an ideal situation you guys would see sense and redirect, dignity intact, and keeping in mind the good times we had. MMF!→talk←/→admin(:D) 09:27, 11 Ditzimber 2008 (UTC)

I think it's very big of Wikia to do this - they could have just ignored us completely. The name change is the main thing, and within a few months (assuming someone takes over the wiki) most of the important articles will have been edited to be different from their counterparts on the new site.

I frankly dislike the idea of turning this to a surrealism wiki. Illogicopedia itself is already pretty much a surrealist wiki. It would just fracture everything. I'd much rather lock this site and leave it. --THE 23:23, 11 Ditzimber 2008 (UTC)

If the site is renamed, then the deleted articles shouldn't be restored, because if the site is renamed it will not be Illogicopedia, so it shouldn't have our Illogicopedia articles. The way I see it there are two options, both of which are compromises:

Consider the two sites to be mostly related. Same name. Deleted articles restored. It is made obvious that the new wiki exists, including on every page describing Illogicopedia, including this.

Consider the two sites to be mostly unrelated. Different name. Deleted articles remain deleted. Illogicopedia is mentioned as being what the site used to be, but not considered close enough to the same site that there are constant mentions of the new wiki. If this is the case then this should be 100% revamped to fit the changed site's description.

The discussion here seems mostly in favor of the locking the wiki, so I went ahead and locked down all the content namespaces. I left the User, Forum, and all the talk namespaces unlocked for time being (mainly so you can ask questions or respond). I have also replaced the logo, and changed the site name, and changed the URL. Obviously the world "Illogicopedia" is littered throughout the wiki so it won't be practical to remove it completely at this time, but the primary objective of ensuring that there isn't any confusion about which site is which should not be harmed by that.

At some point in the next week or two, I'll lock down the rest of the wiki, and clean up a few of the other things that need to be done. If, at some point in the future, your circumstances change, your wiki will be here waiting for you--you're welcome back any time. --KyleH(talk) 22:40, 16 Ditzimber 2008 (UTC)